


Two Blushing Pilgrims

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Schmoop, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6097147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She catches sight of Ryan. She hears Esposito coming up behind her, and feels a wild urge to laugh. To turn to Castle to see if he's thinking what she's thinking. This would usually be the part where one or both of the boys busts in and derails yet another might-have-been between them." Till Death Do Us Part tag (4 x 11). Mercifully, a one-shot. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Blushing Pilgrims

**Author's Note:**

> Feh. This is Cora Clavia's danged fault.

  


If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

— _Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v_

  


* * *

  


It's more than a gesture.

She spies him out of the corner of her eye and whatever she's trying to say in whatever language this is to whoever these people are doesn't matter at all. He's caught in the jewel-tone path of light streaming through the stained glass window. He's alone. He looks as close to out of his element as he can, being him, and part of her is sorry. A corner of her heart _hurts,_ because his daughter is growing up, and he's nothing like ready for that. Part of her is sorry, but most of her feels like it was meant to be.

_Where's your date?_ she asks, but it's perfunctory. He's here and she's here and what does it matter where anyone else in the world is?

He feels the same. She knows it, even though he plays it up. He strikes a wounded pose, like he's bucking for sympathy, but he can't stop smiling at her, dazzled and not bothering to hide it for once. Neither of them is bothering, and suddenly it's settled.

_Well, maybe we could be each other's plus one._

He can't say yes fast enough. Often enough. Enthusiastically enough. It's settled and it feels easily as big an accomplishment as making detective.

She catches sight of Ryan. She hears Esposito coming up behind her, and feels a wild urge to laugh. To turn to Castle to see if he's thinking what she's thinking. This would usually be the part where one or both of the boys busts in and derails yet another might-have-been between them.

Not this one, though. Ryan end Esposito and the sudden blare of the organ lurching into the prelude. They rest of the world is too late this time. He knows and she knows they've cheated circumstance this time, and it's settled.

She hugs Ryan fiercely. She lets her eyes drift upward and her smile grow even wider at the warmth in Castle's voice.

_Oh, Jenny, you look amazing._

And she does. The wide world looks amazing as the sun pours in through the stained glass window. As she slips her arm through his, and it's all so much more than a gesture.

  


* * *

  


The church is wall to wall. It's pleasantly warm with bodies crowded close. Lit up with more than just the sun streaming through the stained glass. It's a hushed, brilliantly happy space that affects her more than she was counting on.

And then there's him. Castle in his suit, smiling hard. Looking from the altar to her at his side and back again. There's the brush of his knee against hers as she shifts and the clean, sweet scent of his boutonnière reaches her now and again. There's the fact that he's her plus one and she's his. The fact of _him,_ and it makes her quieter inside that she can ever remember being.

The ceremony is a drawn-out affair. A full-on Catholic Mass, but the priest is young and the flower girl and ring bearer are sweet and just a little troublesome. The whole room rumbles with laughter when she turns in a swirl of spring green skirts and aims her parasol at the congregation like tommy gun. When the little boy, with his cummerbund riding up almost to his armpits, turns the pillow upside down and shakes it hard, frustrated to find the rings are tied on.

He steals looks at her. She smiles at him from behind her hair and doesn't bother to act like she doesn't know. She doesn't bother to act like she isn't stealing her own fair share, and when they catch each other in the act, his eyes alive with a hundred questions. _Was she ever . . .? Did she want to be . . .?_ She has a hundred for him, too, but for once it feels like there's time.

She almost laughs out loud when his face creases with frustration, because he wants to know _now._ He wants to know yesterday and tomorrow and three years ago, and something inside of her hitches. Something that would be guilt any other day. In any other moment, but this isn't. It's Kevin and Jenny's moment. It's theirs because they've decided that it is, and she loves the chance to just have him here. To be with him in this hushed, brilliantly happy space.

The day stretches out beyond them. The afternoon and evening, and she thinks about slipping her arm through his. About stepping close and resting her head against his shoulder. Feeling his hand at her waist, because they have this moment and the next and the next. So many that she can't count and she doesn't want to, because she knows he'll ask her to dance. She'll ask him, and she loves this moment.

She tells him that. She shakes her hair back and smiles at him, full-on and fearlessly. She brings a finger to her lips and just for a second, his head dips closer to hers. A gesture that's not even a nod.

He loves it, too.

* * *

  


  


She doesn't cry at weddings. Not at Hallmark commercials or sappy movies or those awful anti-cruelty commercials with Sarah McLachlan wailing in the background. But she most definitely does not cry at weddings.

She turns, possibly to tell him just that. To _insist_ on it, but the only sound in this sky-high, echoing place is Kevin's voice, wavering and nervous and in love. The only sound is Jenny in reply, certain and clear as a bell. She turns, but her throat is appallingly thick and he's little more than a blur at her side.

She feels him shift. A reaction to however she must look. The scar _hurts_ all of a sudden, like it hasn't for weeks. She raises a hand to her chest and meets nothing but fabric. The stupid dress with its dull color and severe neckline. Something she picked at the last minute in a panic. She stares down hard at the floor.

She fixes her attention on the creaking kneeler and the sealed crack in the gold-flecked tiles. The priest's voice rises and falls, Jenny and Kevin weave a quick-tempo melody underneath. She tries to drag in a breath, but there's something stuck high up under her chest that she doesn't have words for.

She feels her name hovering next to her ear. A breath, rather than a sound, and still, she knows it for his voice. She responds the way she has for a long while now in moments like this. Her spine softens and her ribs rest easier beneath her skin. Air flows into her and solemn joy with it. A little of this lovely moment makes its way right through her.

She turns again, working on a tight, brave smile, but his fingers are closing around her wrist. Breath rushes out of her in a mercifully silent _O,_ and her eyes go wide. He nudges her gently, nodding down to where his thigh nearly touches hers. To his other palm, upturned, with a perfect square of white folded on it.

_A handkerchief._ It shakes her out of anything else for good. She sparks to it, her armor sliding into place with a nearly audible _snick_. But when her vision clears, she sees his eyes are suspiciously bright, and it doesn't occur to him to hide it. Her spine softens and her ribs rest easier beneath her skin.

She reaches across her own body and takes it from him. A perfect square of white. His head dips closer to hers again. Hardly a nod, but she feels gladness coming off his body in waves. His fingers glide over the skin of her wrist, drifting away as he straightens his shoulders. As he fixes his gaze on the altar again.

That's his intention, anyway. It's how he means the gesture to go, but the day stretches out beyond them, and her fingers find his. He stops, absolutely, and under other circumstances, it might be funny, the way his palm dwarfs hers and still their fingertips quite nearly meet.

In any other moment, it might be an odd thing. Funny, but here and now, in this lovely, solemn, _happy_ moment, she folds her fingers into the spaces between his. Her eyes flutter closed, and in an instant, she sees the too-few moments she's held his hand. When he's held hers, and for an instant, it's terrible, how it takes the world ending one way or another to bring them to this. But it's only an instant and everything but now— _this_ moment—is gone.

She holds tight, and the knot of their hands comes to rest between them. He doesn't look at her. She doesn't look at him. Neither of them needs to.

It's more than a gesture.

  


  


  


**Author's Note:**

> So gross. But this totally happened. And they each went home to decorate their Trapper Keepers with puffy stickers spelling out Mrs. Richard Castle and Mr. Katherine Beckett. The End.


End file.
